


Growing up fast

by liliaeth



Category: Avengers: The Initiative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-06
Updated: 2007-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/pseuds/liliaeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up is never easy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing up fast

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gabbychanning for being kind enough to beta.
> 
> Written for millenniumrex

 

 

 

 

In less than a few months time two children became adults. They didn't do it quickly;  
they didn't do it from one moment to the other. It wasn't like in the movies, with one  
defining moment that changed their life, it happened slowly. It happened and it left  
them here, in this room, with one of them in a hospital bed and the other holding his  
hand. They were children when they got here; recruited super powered children, but  
still children. No longer are they children.

His name was Terry, Terrence, last name classified. Home was a barely wished for hope. It  
wasn't something he liked thinking about, not since his mother. They thought he was some  
Goth punk, or just plain emo; he was neither. He just liked wearing black or so he  
insisted. When you come in wearing all black hot topic stuff, you leave an impression  
that's hard to leave behind.

He was just happy they didn't make him cut his hair. Considering the type of uniforms  
they were supposed to wear, he wasn't looking forward to an army type crew-cut. Not that  
the uniform was all that ... appealing to the girls type of fashion. It wasn't that formal,  
just a pair of military slacks and a t-shirt. Though at least it wasn't tights.

Terry had never planned to be a superhero, not even after he got his powers, but after  
his mother... he couldn't afford not to sign up. The guys from the Initiative had promised  
to make him safe. It was better than getting the weird looks at school. Joining up was  
the only way out.

*****

Little Abby, sweet little girl with a heart of gold; sweet little wallflower. Getting her  
powers was the best moment of her life. Before her powers she'd been the girl sitting in  
the middle of the class. She wasn't one of the nerds, her grades were never high enough  
for that. She definitely wasn't one of the popular kids either. She'd signed up for  
cheerleader try outs once and she'd slipped away before they called her name.

She'd gotten on the bus in New York; people had been staring at them, at the wannabe  
superheroes. It hadn't been easy to get through the demonstrators, but at least people  
didn't throw stuff at her, like they did at some of the others. She'd arrived at the  
terminal and looking at most of them she hadn't felt anything but terror and realization  
that she should have come up in some kind of costume. Compared to the others she felt  
seriously underdressed. Well...overdressed was a better world, some of those girls, they'd  
make a bathing suit model look modest.

Some photographer had tried to take pictures of them, but the army guys at the terminal  
had quickly put a stop to that. Abby had tried to slink away in the shadows, gave them  
her codename and was quickly let through. It was weird how many of these people knew one  
another; she heard that several of them used to hang out with the New Warriors. They  
didn't look that bad, but what did she know?

She desperately tried not to get too close to the big guy wearing a mask that covered  
everything but his mouth. One of the others called him Rage and he looked like it.

She hadn't ever planned on being a superhero. Superheroes were something from children  
cartoons or comic books. They were larger than life people that took prime spot on the  
five-o-clock news.

Even when she got her powers, she never thought `I can be a superhero'. There had been  
plenty of mutants out there then and Abby had just relaxed in knowing that at least she  
wasn't one of them. Being a superhero though hadn't even been a consideration. Not even  
once.

She'd signed up because of her dad. Her dad had gotten this big freak out when he found  
out Abby had powers and after Stamford, they couldn't mess up their little middle class  
life by having her be arrested. It would have been worse than being caught driving without  
a license. Or being home late from a party; as if she ever got invited to any of the cool  
ones. Looking at the other girls around her, she didn't think she'd ever fit in.

She knew her dad just worried, that he loved her. Sometimes, just every once and a while,  
she wished she didn't have to be the good girl.

*******

Terrence hadn't even thought about a codename when he came in to register. The guy behind  
the bench had seemed bored. There had been about a dozen guys before him and all of them  
had seemed like they'd stepped right out of a comic book or a body builder magazine. Turns  
out that out of the dozen guys that signed up, Terry was the only one who's registration  
was actually accepted.

For some reason lots of guys seemed to think that all it took to be a superhero and get  
paid for it was to wear a costume and have big muscles. Terry didn't feel so much like  
an idiot after that. The guy behind the bench had barely even looked at him before handing  
him about a dozen sheets. The first line had been codename. Terry had looked at it in shock.

"I was supposed to come up with a codename?" He'd asked.

The guy behind the bench looked at him as if he were some kind of moron. Terry had quickly  
stopped talking.

"So what's your powers?" The guy finally asked.

"I turn into what people are scared of." Terry had answered.

"And you can't think of a codename based on that?"

Well... Terry had come up with a few; the guy had rejected them all, for being too stupid,  
too common, already in use, often by bad guys.

"Codename Trauma." The guy finally said. Terry hadn't bothered to object. At least the guy  
hadn't gone with his first pick in names.

God, `Emo boy', what had he been thinking.

You know, besides trying not to stare at the woman next to him dressed in a snake and little  
more than a snake.

*****

Abby loved flying. She'd wanted to fly since the first time her dad took her up in a  
helicopter at the town's fair when she was a little kid. They'd asked five dollars a  
trip for a flight and Abby had kept talking about it for months. At first her parents  
had thought it was cute, but they'd soon gotten tired of it. Other girls her age played  
with dolls, she bought a play mobile airport set and every piece in it. Her favourite  
My Little Pony had wings and her favourite Barbie doll was the fairy princess one because  
of the wings.

She always knew she would someday fly, she'd just never expected to do it like this.

When she got her powers, it had been an accident, just something silly, if she'd been  
five seconds later or even a minute earlier, it would never have happened. Just one moment  
of absolute terror and thinking her parents were going to find her dead body and the town  
would be all upset at how her far too young life was gone far too soon and blah blah...

And then she'd started floating and it had turned into a dream come true. Flying was  
amazing and there was nothing she loved more in all of her life. She used to dream she'd  
fly one day. Just a silly dream. She'd thought she'd end up fulfilling it by taking some  
flying classes, maybe become a pilot one day, well that or a stewardess if she failed math  
again. This though... it was better than any of her dreams had ever been.

Unburdened by social expectations she was able to leave them all behind her on the ground  
while she went up to the clouds, light as a feather. In the air there was no one to judge  
her, no one to ignore her. Up there she could claim she was alone because she wanted to be,  
not because they just ignored her. No one in class could follow her up to tell her otherwise.

******

Terry had noticed her as soon as he stepped on the bus. She looked sweet. And unlike the  
others she didn't look down on him. She was just trying not to look at everyone else, kinda  
like him. He didn't dare smile at her. He did notice she had a cute smile.

She was the one to ask what happened if they washed out, she didn't get an answer. Doctor Pym,  
Yellow Jacket didn't give them an answer. Terry hoped that meant they'd get him rid of these  
powers, this curse of his.

She fell for the jock, all the girls did. Terry had wished to be him, unburdened, just gifted.  
The dream recruit for everybody. Until MVP died. Because of him. Until Armory washed out, also  
because of him; because his powers had scared her so much she'd killed MVP. He wished he'd never  
gotten them.

Even she was afraid to be around him after that. All of them in their own little group of  
secrets and lies stared at him. And all he could do was brood to keep from laughing at the silly  
nicknames and the soap opera. They were worse than high school. High school with powers and high  
tech gadgets and being taught how to shoot and kill, maybe it wasn't that weird then.

They formed their own little clique though, the amateurs, the newbies, the fresh recruits. All  
the other trainees had at least some kind of experience, but not them.

He smiled at the girl, but was glad that she didn't notice.

*******

She'd never been as scared as the moment she realized she'd killed a man. She'd killed  
a man, their instructor; Justice had been the only one to act as if that was wrong. It  
wasn't like in the movies. As soon as they'd gotten to the toilet, she'd thrown up, even  
as she pretended to the others that everything was normal. She couldn't reveal to be  
squeamish in front of the president, especially after their first real mission.

She didn't think she'd ever want to do it again.

She was still a kid. She wanted to go home in her room with her teddy bears and childish  
toys and instead she kept seeing the moment where she'd shot at the plane. She'd expected  
to see a chute, a guy jumping out of the plane after she shot him. But none of that had  
happened. He'd been the enemy, he'd have shot her or one of her friends if she hadn't  
fired, but he'd been a person and she'd killed him.

She threw up again.

Up to that moment target practice had been fun, something she was good at, afterwards...  
she couldn't help wonder if he'd had a family waiting for him back home. Had he known  
this was how he would end?

Her finger on the trigger and everyone told her what a good job she'd done. They'd  
stopped Hydra, they'd saved the president. They were heroes. Real heroes.

So why was Justice so disappointed with her for doing just what she'd been taught to do?

******

Dani wasn't like anyone else at the camp. It wasn't just her being a mutant, or ex-mutant.  
There weren't many mutants left; most of them were at Xavier's and Dani had lost her powers  
on M-day. But she knew what his powers felt like, she knew how scared he was of hurting  
someone with them and she showed him what he could do if he'd let himself. The good they  
could do for others.

She knew fear and she brought hope. The first time that he turned into something to help  
instead of to cause fear, he'd stood there with a dopy grin on his face. She just patted  
him on the back. It was the best moment of his life.

He'd thought he'd been doing really good, learning to control his powers, how not to  
accidentally lash out whenever he got angry or scared. And then director Gyrich showed  
up and told him he was wrong about everything and dragging him off to his black ops team  
without a second notice.

The others got a choice; he was just supposed to be the weapon for them to drop off.

Dani had wanted him to be a healer; Gyrich wanted him to be some kind of Omega level weapon  
to bring down the Hulk. All he remembered was being scared as hell when he was in actual combat.

Who was he supposed to believe?

******

Abby stood at Trauma's bed, shaking, unable to cope with being around him.

"I can't be here," she'd said, "every time I get near this guy, bad things happen."

Like MVP dying to save her, like losing control and almost killing someone, like becoming  
the very image of a monster she feared to become.

"He freaks me out." She'd finally admitted.

She'd even said it in front of him; she hadn't even realized he was already awake. But he  
hadn't taken it as an insult; he'd just reached out to her, offered her his hand and showed  
her her fear, giving her a chance to get over it. He'd understood.

She nearly cried, refusing to think just how much she'd hated him, how much she'd hated  
herself.

"I can help."

And he did. She wasn't her own worst fear any more.

She wished they could stay this way.

*********

He was the one on the bed; she was the one standing next to him. Yet he'd helped her, helped  
her fear. And for the first time since MVP died she faced him without fear. It's when he knew,  
no matter what they told him, whether or not he'd graduate. He could help people. And that made  
it all worth it.

Abby smiled, they joked.

Who knows, things might actually work out...

The Beginning

 


End file.
